


Hopes & Fears

by anneapocalypse



Category: Red vs. Blue
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, Background Relationships, Canon-Typical Violence, Crushes, F/F, First Kiss, Fluff and Angst, Grief/Mourning, Implied/Referenced Character Death, Injury, New Republic of Chorus, Party, War
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-06-05
Updated: 2017-02-08
Packaged: 2018-02-03 14:05:37
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 4
Words: 6,799
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1747355
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/anneapocalypse/pseuds/anneapocalypse
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Before the war, before they were Jensen and "Volleyball," they were just Katie and Sarita, and in the moments between, they still are.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Congrats

**Author's Note:**

> Implied background Carolina/Kimball.

"Congrats."

Sarita has her helmet off. Her thick dark hair’s been under the helmet all day, but it hasn’t quite managed to flatten all the wave out of it. She has it in a messy side ponytail now, tumbling over one shoulder as she looks up at Katie, and smiles. She’s good at putting on a smile, though it doesn’t quite make it up to her eyes. They’re so pretty, rich brown and heavy-lashed, but there’s trouble there and Katie can see it.

She pulls off her own helmet, and her glasses fall off—if their armor was any good the HUD could compensate for her nearsightedness but they've been making do with generic, cast-off, and outright cobbled-together armor for months now. No choice but to cram the glasses under the helmet. Katie rubs the pinched, sore bridge of her nose for a moment before dropping down to feel for them on the ground—but Sarita’s already collected them, dusted them off, and presses them into her hand.

"Thanks,” Katie says, setting the crooked frames back on her face, barely hearing the air hiss between her front teeth. Long since gave up caring about her messed-up mouth. Funny. Used to seem like such a big deal. Same with the glasses, the clumsiness. Her whole… self. Somehow it all doesn’t seem so bad now. Out here, she’s Jensen: Soldier, vehicle specialist, and now a First Lieutenant before her twenty-first birthday, and even if she knows it’s because the rebels have to take who they can get, she’s proud.

Lieutenant Kathryn Emeric Jensen. Dad would’ve liked that.

"Sorry," she adds, after too long a pause, dropping onto the bench beside her friend. No tables in the mess tent. All the ones they had left went to medical.

"Don’t be sorry," Sarita says, too quick.

They aren’t talking about the glasses.

“It should’ve been you,” Katie blurts. “You deserve it.”

Sarita shakes her head. “Don’t say that. You know it’s—listen, a team has to be able to work together, right? You get along so well with the Captain. You know he doesn’t like me.”

“That’s not it!” Katie gestures in protest, hands moving faster than her mouth as she tries to figure out the words. “He-he likes you fine! He’s just…” 

Well, he’s freaking terrified of Velasquez, who  _wouldn’t_  be? Sarita doesn’t get it, but pretty people don’t. When they first met it took Katie weeks to work up the nerve to even sit near Sarita without feeling like she was going to swallow her own tongue. And that was before they were soldiers, just a couple of Bio majors who never finished their freshman year because another war was happening, this one on their own soil.

Funny thing was, when Katie finally worked up the nerve to talk to Sarita, Sarita  _liked_  her. And as with most good things in her life, Katie kept waiting for the punchline on that one, but it never came. Sarita didn’t give her a stupid nickname about her teeth or her glasses or her wildly bushy red-brown hair. Didn’t drag her to parties and then leave her alone in a corner clutching a solo cup of off-brand cola in abject terror. Didn’t pretend not to know her in front of other people. Sat next to her in lab. In front of everybody.

Then the Feds declared martial law and things got pretty bad in the city and Katie kept thinking it just couldn’t go like this—humanity had survived a freaking alien invasion, how could they win that war and then be shooting each other in the streets? Then some kids rallied up to protest on campus and the MPs came and some kids got shot and it was bad, really bad. So they left school, left everything behind—Katie's D&D club, Sarita's weekend beach volleyball team—and they joined up with the rebels and now they’re eating weird gelatinous meat out of tins in a dirty mess tent and Katie’s seen kids younger than her die. Up close.

She still has somebody to sit with at lunch, though, so that’s pretty good.

Sarita’s waiting and Katie realizes she never finished her sentence. Forgot what she was going to say anyway, so she tries again. “I mean it’s probably gonna be a boring mission anyway—”

“Katie, it’s okay.”

“I mean like it’s not like the best assignment or anything I mean the Captains are cool and everything but it’s not like they—” Katie breaks off again because the Captains  _have_  had kind of mixed success actually and nobody wants to talk about Captain Tucker’s last mission. Rogers used to live in the party house just down the hill from campus.

She’s really batting a thousand today.

“Katie.” Sarita pushes her hair out of her eyes to look at her dead-on. “Stop it. It is a good assignment. It is and you deserve it.”

Katie snorts.

“I mean it. I don’t care why the Captain picked you. Don’t make that face at me. You’re the best in the platoon. Yes, better than me, don’t you even start.”

“You don’t have to say that.” It galls her a little, to be honest. She knows Sarita means well and there’s a part of her that does feel bad, knowing why she got the spot, but there’s another part of her, an old half-buried part, that hisses at her that being too pretty is a dumb thing to feel sorry for someone about, and the more she lets that creep up the more hollow the reassurances feel.

Well, they shouldn’t. She  _is_  good, right.

“I’m saying it because it’s true. You’re gonna go out there and kick ass.” Sarita grins. “Including Palomo’s ass if necessary.”

Katie snorts again and it catches in her throat, sending her into a momentary coughing fit. Sarita hands over her canteen and Katie takes a swallow, sputtering. A couple more sips manage to suppress it.

“Seriously though, LT.” Sarita grabs her hand, dark eyes turning somber. “You gotta keep an eye on this mission, okay? Palomo’s so far up Tucker’s ass he can’t see daylight. Smitty thinks Caboose is some kinda god. Bitters… I dunno, maybe you can talk to Bitters, but fuck if you can count on him to do anything. Just… somebody’s gotta remember why we’re here. The Caps just want their COs back. And look, I get that, but this is our fight first.”

Katie bites her lip uncertainly.

“I know you like Captain Simmons, just… watch your back out there, Katie.”

“Captain Simmons wouldn’t let anything happen to us.”  _He likes me_ , Katie reminds herself. Even said her gunner turret modifications were good. Well, that’s what she thought he said. He was a little squeaky at the time.

Sarita gives Katie a little kiss, right on her cheek, making her blush, but not in a bad way. “Just come back safe, LT.”


	2. Stranger Things

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [Inspiration](http://anneapocalypse.tumblr.com/post/88107621226/zyca-rip-palomo-protect-female-squad-mates-at)

There have been a lot of days in the past year when Katie Jensen has pondered how exactly her life became what it is.

And yet the surrealness she feels today, with sunlight slanting down into the old mine chasm they call home, is not about the war. The war has become mundane, like the smell of weak, bitter coffee drifting out of the mess tent in the morning. Unpleasant but ordinary. The hopelessness of their cause is such a constant you start to get used to it, like the dry wind that coughs raggedly down through the rock, finding them even in their hiding place.

No, what's weird now is the heady feeling that lifts in her chest when she walks up on the volleyball pit to see Velasquez sitting on a crate nearby in the sun, chalking pink streaks into her dark hair.

 

Volleyball. Not Katie's thing before the war. Before Sarita. _Sports_. Katie wrinkles her nose.

Want to play? Sarita would ask, back when Katie came shyly along to her practices on campus. They weren't a proper team, Sarita assured her, just a club. Just for fun. No pressure.

I'm good, Katie would say, settling cross-legged on the sidelines.

Somehow she had expected a troupe of uniformly thin, leggy girls with bouncy ponytails but of course it wasn’t like that at all. They were a friendly, varied group, all shapes and sizes and not all girls either, and they laughed a lot and didn’t even keep score half the time. But Katie still sat and watched. Long as she sat still, she couldn’t embarrass herself. Well, not much.

Wasn't until they joined up that she thought oh, okay, why not. What'd she have to lose anyway?

Sarita taught her how to volley. How to bend her knees, catch the ball smack against her extended forearms. It hurt. She never got how it wasn’t supposed to hurt.

But she was a soldier now.

Hard to get the angle right. Kept sending the ball straight up, or over one shoulder. Smacking herself in the nose. Couldn’t make her limbs do whatever it was they needed to do.

You’re getting it! Sarita said. Katie wrinkled her nose. Sports. But it got to be nice practicing, just the two of them. Sarita would come around behind her and put her arms around her and adjust her form and that’s when Katie started wondering if it was really about volleyball, or something else.

Which one would be stranger, really?

 

Stashing her hair chalk in the compartment of her armor, Sarita waves, the streaks in her hair bright in the sun.

“How was training?” she says as Katie sits. Katie grimaces. Sarita makes a face back. “Sorry.” Her gloves are off. Katie notices this an instant before Sarita takes her hand, casually as anything.

Her skin is creamy brown against Katie's freckly knuckles and Katie can't stop staring at where their fingers intertwine. Even when there are other things to watch. The thump of a grungy, lumpy volleyball in a dirt pit that doesn't quite pass for sand. It's hard and rocky and hurts to fall on. Doesn't stop them from playing though. The smack of a spike and the cheers and groans seem distant, the warmth of Sarita’s hand in hers surreal.

Is this real? This… thing, between them, whatever it is? Katie doesn’t know what to call it. Kind of afraid to give it a name.

But it makes her feel like she's going to stop breathing, sometimes.

So many things to hope for: their squad training, the success of the upcoming mission, the distant barely-dare-to-hope for an end to this war. And now this, one more thing for which Katie prays please, let this be real.

Hope is as strange as sports, or holding hands.

“You guys playin’, or what?”

Sarita rises off the crate, but slowly, not entirely letting go of Katie’s hand. “You in?”

Sarita grumps about playing in armor, less flexibility she says, but Katie likes it. Doesn’t sting to volley like it would with her arms bare. The Quartermaster yells at them for getting dirt in their armor joints, but it’s just too much bother to change for a quick game. And not really safe, though they don’t talk about that. The Feds haven’t discovered this hideaway yet but it’s only a matter of time.

They don’t think about that, not with a strip of sunlight slanting down on them and a game to play.

Mostly, Katie just tries to kind of stay out of the way and let the others do their thing. She’s the extra on their team anyway, odd numbers today. But Sarita never dives into her spot when a ball comes at her. Lets her try. So she does.

And sometimes she misses, but today she gets one good. Knees bent, a good solid _smack_ when the ball hits her gauntlets and _sails_ over the ratty net. Palomo volleys it back, but Sarita’s ready with a hard spike and the ball slams into the dirt on the other side.

Sarita whoops and pounces on Katie with a triumphant hug and a kiss on the cheek and Katie’s face splits into a grin and she can smell Sarita’s hair and she’s just trying to keep from hyperventilating when Palomo lets loose a long wolf-whistle from the other end of the pit.

Katie feels herself flush red nose to knees.

Sarita’s eyes narrow as she prances back to her spot. “Fuckin’ serve already.”

“You two need a minute?”

Maybe the chasm will open up and swallow Katie straight into the center of the planet. It couldn’t possibly be hotter than her face.

“I said _serve_.”

Palomo smirks as the ball arcs over the net and Sarita smiles and spikes the ball straight into Palomo’s nose. He goes right down, sputtering and bleeding in the dirt. One of the other guys, a staff sergeant, hollars, “The fuck, Velasquez?”

“Sorry,” Sarita says coolly, tossing her hair. “Not my fault he sucks.”

 

“Sorry for earlier.”

“For what?”

Sarita’s walking her back to the garage after the game. The sun has receded behind the yellowed clouds again in the jagged strip of sky above them. Katie isn’t looking at that anyway. She’s looking at the way Sarita’s biting her lip, stumbling over her words. Weird for her. Sarita is bright, bouncy, full of feeling that spills out of her in big bubbly bursts. Not nervous like this. Not like Katie gets.

“I didn’t—” There’s the lip bite again. “I mean. I didn’t mean to make things weird.”

“ _You_ didn’t.”

“Palomo’s a dick.” Sarita runs a hand through her hair. She looks down at her feet. Looks up again. “Sorry I like—made things weird though.”

“What—” Katie pauses, trying to figure it out. What she’s asking. What Sarita’s saying, exactly.

They've reached the garage but Katie feels like this conversation isn't really over and she doesn't want to leave it here. The warthogs aren't going anywhere. So she keeps walking, steering them down the narrow alley between the western wall of the garage and the rock face. Sarita follows without question.

“Made what weird, though?”

“You know. In front of the others?”

“I didn’t mind!” It comes out more _emphatic_ than Katie really intended but she can’t help it. Not when what she really means is _It’d be okay if you did again._ Because Palomo's awful but it doesn't matter, _he_ doesn't matter and the thought that Sarita might stop being the way she is, stop doing those cute things she does like hug her out of the blue or kiss her on the cheek, because of him, makes Katie _angry_ in a way she's not used to feeling.

She doesn't know how to say any of that, though, so she says again, "I don't mind."

Sarita glances at her, biting her lip again before she looks away.

"It's okay if you don't like volleyball," Sarita blurts out, kind of flailing her hands helplessly. "You don't have to—I mean—"

"I-I like it with _you_ ," Katie stammers. "I mean, I like _you_ , I mean—"

Oh crap.

Sarita goes quiet for minute. “Well—we could do other stuff.”

“Like what?”

And her friend looks _flustered_ , which is funny because Sarita really never looks flustered. She has a laugh for everything. A smile. A joke. And now she’s fidgeting, stammering, “Oh—I don’t know, like—something you like, you know?”

“You wanna clean fuel injectors with me?”

Sarita laughs out loud, relaxing a little as she leans against the concrete wall. “That’s a hell of a line, Katie.”

“Thanks.”

She watches Sarita kind of purse her lips and then fish some lip balm out of her armor’s storage compartment and smear it on in a self-conscious kind of way. It smells like strawberries. Oh god. Oh god oh god oh god, Katie thinks, butterflies in her stomach. She’s gonna get kissed.

Sarita’s fingers fidget with the cap on her lip balm for way too long before she puts it away and Katie feels like she can’t breathe.

“Katie,” Sarita says. “I…”

And Katie wonders if the look she gives Sarita looks flat terrified because Sarita stops dead and they just stare at each other for a moment and just before it starts to get real awkward Sarita takes a deep breath and leans in.

Oh god, kissing.

Her lips are warm and waxy-sweet from the lip balm and oh god she’s never done this before not with anyone ever and Sarita’s hands are on her waist and they bump noses and oh god, _kissing_ , this is real this is real this is _real_.

“Jensen, where are you? Hey—anybody seen Jensen?”

They pull apart with a start. Sarita claps a hand over her mouth to stifle her giggles. Katie feels laughter rising up in her chest too, about to spill over and she tries to swallow it back and starts coughing instead and Sarita starts snorting and then they’re both gone, grabbing each other for balance and smothering hysterical snickers in each other’s shoulders.

Even after they catch their breath, they kinda stand there in a hug for a minute and don’t let go and it’s pretty nice.

“I gotta go,” Katie says reluctantly.

Sarita gives her a squeeze before letting go. “I know.”

 

“Lieutenant!” Matthews jogs up to her as they come back around to the garage entrance. “We got two hogs gone with no sign-out, did you see who took ‘em?”

Sarita tosses her a strawberry pink smile as she turns to go. “Catch you later, LT.”

 


	3. Before the Dawn

Two days after the Warthogs go missing and they hear the message, Felix comes back from scouting and the General calls the four Lieutenants down to the command center.

Jensen’s hands are shaking and she feels like she’s going to throw up and there are a lot of things the news could be but whatever it is, it’s probably bad and she can’t decide which thing would be worse.

After Felix tells them, she thinks: No, that was worse. That was definitely worse.

 

Smith hugs her. Smith has always been a hugger. Katie never realized how important it was to have a hugger around until right now, because she almost falls into him, choking back sobs that won’t stop. Bitters punches and kicks the wall, spitting a vicious string of curses. Palomo just gets painfully, terribly quiet.

 

It’s given to the four of them to break the news to the enlisted ranks.

“How the fuck do we do this?” Bitters says, shaking his head as the four of them convene.

Smith has his helmet off, clutched to his chest, eyes glassy. “Do you think we should call everyone together? Make a formal announcement?”

Jensen’s about to speak but is interrupted by a noise on her left that turns out to be Palomo crying. Palomo _sobbing_ , not even trying to hide it, not bothering to wipe the tears streaming down his face. Palomo crying is not something Jensen has ever seen and she finds herself shivering, a rattling hollow feeling in her chest like someone just grabbed her and shook her very hard.

She remembers then that Palomo is the only surviving member of Green Team.

 

In the end they do it the way Smith suggested: right after supper, when all the platoons are gathered in the mess, and they get up and stand before them in a row. Bitters, Jensen, Smith, and Palomo. Smith takes off his helmet, clutching it against his chest. Jensen takes hers off too. Hasn’t been able to stop crying inside it all day. Her glasses are streaked and foggy. Palomo shoots them a glance, then tugs his helmet off too. Bitters keeps his on.

“Friends,” Smith begins, a little choked, and his voice doesn’t project very far. A few soldiers at the nearer tables look up. Jensen has to grab a cup and rap on it with a spoon to get the attention of the rest. One by one, the heads of their fellow soldiers swivel their way, and quiet sweeps over the mess.

Katie feels like she can’t breathe.

“Comrades, countrymen,” Smith says gravely. “Soldiers of the New Republic. We stand before you today with heavy hearts.”

Palomo swallows audibly. Bitters’ spine is ramrod straight, his hands clenched to fists at his side.

Katie's gaze lands straight on Sarita, staring at her with those big, big brown eyes heavy-lashed and beautiful and Katie can tell she knows, even before Smith says the words, “It is with great sorrow that we bring you the news that our Captains have fallen…”

The force of Sarita’s gaze feels like the only thing keeping her breathing.

“We are all deeply saddened by this news,” General Kimball adds, having appeared beside them so quietly that Katie jumps at the sound of her voice. “I will not dishonor the many among us who have fallen before them by saying that this is the greatest loss we have endured. Nevertheless, it is a loss to all of us. In their brief time with us, the Captains were many things to the New Republic, and different things to each of us. Whatever they were to you, I ask you to consider that tonight. Consider what they taught you, and what they fought for. As always, chaplaincy is available.

“Training exercises will resume at 0600 tomorrow morning,” Kimball concludes, quietly. “You are dismissed.”

 

Sarita finds her as soon as they leave the mess tent and they sneak a moment around the back. Katie takes her helmet off in the shadow of the rock wall under the setting sun.

"LT," Sarita says, choking up.

She throws her arms around Katie and dissolves immediately into gulping sobs, mascara just running down her face, snotty messy crying she doesn't even try to hold back. She bawls into Katie's shoulder, and Katie's even a little startled at how distraught she is, and just hugs back in silence until Sarita sniffles and gasps and chokes out, "Those bastards—" She pulls back enough to mop up her face a little with the back of one hand, eyes all black and smeary. "It could've been _you_."

Oh.

Katie swallows hard.

She wants to say maybe if the Captains had taken them along, maybe if they'd just stuck to the plan, they could’ve made it. But she's not sure, not really. Because after all, if the Captains couldn't do it... what makes her think _they_ would've done any better?

 

By curfew Katie feels exhausted down to her bones, drained in a way she’s never quite felt even in these many long months at war. She and the other Lieutenants have spent the evening with the enlisted ranks, providing what support they can alongside Chaplain Anunaya and the General herself. Kimball took Jensen aside after dinner and said she should let her know if she heard anyone expressing intent to self-harm, but otherwise anything said among the troops was to be considered confidential and off-the-record. In the morning, they’d begin the hard work of rebuilding morale. Tonight, everyone was to be allowed to grieve.

Not just for the Captains, either. This latest loss had reopened the wounds of so many previous losses, and it seemed that every soldier had someone else they wanted to speak about. Katie nearly froze in horror at the weight of it all, the grief of so many people pressing it on her from all sides. Smith sat beside her in the rec tent, a comforting assurance in the way he nodded earnestly as their comrades clustered in circles, talking in fits and starts and scattered, half-told memories. Katie found herself mimicking his nods and quiet gestures as numbness began to overtake her and the words all blurred together into meaninglessness.

The relief of climbing into her bunk and letting the quiet settle in on her is so profound Katie feels like she might sink straight through into the ground and never emerge. She lets out a long, long breath, trying to rub the pounding from the bridge of her nose.

She goes still when she hears a familiar sniffling in the dark.

"Sarita?" Katie whispers.

A loud snuffle comes from the next bunk over.

"You wanna come over here?"

There's the sound of Sarita blowing her nose and then feet padding quietly on the floor and Katie shoves herself against the wall to make room.

They wrap up in each other's arms in the narrow bunk and Sarita nestles against her and promptly starts sobbing again.

"It's never gonna end, is it," Sarita chokes out, muffled against her shoulder. "No one will ever help us. UNSC hung us out to dry and the Feds are gonna fucking murder anyone who makes it out here to help us. They’ll never stop. They won't stop until we're all dead."

Katie holds her tight, letting her Sarita’s tears soak into her shoulder and she rubs her back and feels the numb haze start to melt, slowly. Still no tears left. She wants to say something, needs to but she can’t find it. How are any of them supposed to find it after this—they’ve all exhausted their collective well of optimism for these heroes, they’re run dry, what are they supposed to have left. Where can she find that single word of hope she needs for Sarita— _for my girlfriend_ , she thinks. She's been testing out the thought in her head ever since they agreed, yesterday, that that's what they were. It's felt nothing but surreal until right now, clinging to each other under a worn army blanket, feeling every shudder and sob like it’s her own—of course they are, of course they _have_ been this, even before they said the word, and it seems absurd that she ever thought otherwise.

Dimly she wonders how this one thing can feel so good when absolutely everything else is so, so bad.

Sarita hiccups a few times and grows quiet and it's a relief when she doesn't make a move to leave. She drifts off in Katie's arms, snoring softly, and Katie kisses her tearstained face and closes her own eyes.


	4. The End, and What Comes After

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>  **Warnings for this chapter** : Descriptions of violence and injury, non-explicit sexual content.

Kathryn Jensen doesn’t really remember at this point how many times she’s believed—really believed, all the way down to her bones—that she was about to die. It turns out that in war, that happens a lot.

You don’t quite get used to it.

She’s been shot before. Took a bad one to the midsection, actually, on one of her first missions. One of her squadmates, Ayelet, packed her full of biofoam while she screamed. Stuff burns really bad. Someone held her down—it’s hard to remember. It might have been Sarita, actually.

Katie was sure she was dead. Extraction was a Warthog with one tire shot out and she was hysterical the whole way, sobbing with the pain as the hog lurched over uneven ground. But they got her back to base—well, what was their base then, another old mining facilities long since lost to aerial bombardments by the Feds.

She woke up sick on painkillers that made everything blurry and wrong and still didn’t stop all of the pain, and she thought she might die then, too. But Medic Violet had plucked out the bullet fragments, straightened up her insides out and stitched her back up. So she didn’t die, that day.

In the days leading up to the assault on the Capital, as she inspected every vehicle in their meager motorpool, tuned up engines and replaced fan belts and cleaned fuel injectors and changed oil, Lieutenant Jensen thought about that a lot. When Corporal Velasquez came in, took a corner of the workbench to clean her rifle with the sort of controlled fury she usually reserved for the volleyball pit, Jensen watched her out of the corner of her eye and she thought about it then, too.

She wondered how this last stand in the city would go—how long they’d hold out, and what it would feel like to die at long last.

When it came time for a break, Katie came over to Sarita at the workbench and rested a grease-smeared hand on her shoulder. Sarita covered Katie’s hand with her own, and neither of them spoke.

 

The old mining chasm is full of the smell of woodsmoke tonight, a sharp and foreign scent so different from the coal stoves they’ve used for heat so many months down here. The firewood is a gift from the Federal outposts in the north. A peace offering, like the food.

When she kisses Sarita’s lips they taste of melted sugar. Sarita holds her marshmallow stick near the coals, turning and turning until it turns golden on all sides, bubbling brown just at the top. Then she peels off the toasted shell and eats that first, finally eating the gooey insides in one bite and licking her fingers. Katie holds her marshmallow in the flames until it catches fire, watches it burn like a sugary torch until the outside is fully black, and blows it out.

Their mouths and fingers are sticky, they taste like sugar, _real sugar,_ not those sweetener packets that come with the instant coffee in MREs. From the bonfire, sparks fly into the dark night. Nearby, Palomo is burning some vegetarian hot dogs on a two-pronged stick.

“Think we should offer to help?” Sarita says, giggling as both dogs catch fire.

“They’re good that way,” Katie says, grinning as Palomo waves the stick frantically, before Bitters grabs it by the middle and blow out the flames. “Crispy.”

“Gross,” Sarita says affectionately, kissing her cheek.

 

Katie still has that scar on her belly, from that first mission. Remembers Sarita touching it softly in the dark, two nights before Armonia. Like she knew exactly where it was, without looking. Not like they’d never seen each other before—there’s never been much real privacy in camp. But this was different. Different and new, for both of them, it turned out. Katie sure wasn’t expecting that. She was always the awkward one, figured it wouldn’t be much different in bed, but Sarita was suddenly shy, so much that Katie stopped kissing her to ask if she was sure.

She was sure. They were both sure, even though it was new. They were both scared of a lot of things—but not this. The war and the rest of their lives might be barreling ahead too fast to stop, but this—this they could take as slow as they wanted, and so they did.

 

The Reds and Blues are clustered around one of the folding tables dragged out from medical. Captain Tucker’s the man of the hour. You almost wouldn’t know he was stabbed less than a week ago, except for the way his hand sometimes drifts to his abdomen, that wince when he moves a little too fast. Katie knows what that’s like.

The Freelancers are here too—at least, Agent Washington is. He seems to stick close to the Captains, especially Tucker. The other one Katie doesn’t know as much about, but she’s seen her, mostly talking with General Kimball at the hospital after the ceasefire. She’s heard the story of the Freelancer who infiltrated Locus’s ranks alone, saved the Reds and Blues—and by extension probably saved all of them.

She almost doesn’t realize Carolina _is_ Carolina, when she does spot her, walking out of the Command Center with the General. Both of them are in plainclothes, but Katie’s seen Kimball unhelmeted plenty of times, short black hair with blue tips at the front, light brown complexion decorated with a dramatic trio of scars down the left side of her face. It’s her companion that seizes Katie’s attention, with flaming red hair cropped short at the back and long bangs hanging over one eye, clearly wearing the General’s clothes as they fit just a little big on her all around. Katie supposes she’s about the right height to be Carolina, though she looks somehow much smaller out of armor in a way her New Republic comrades don’t. Maybe because she knows them. Maybe because the Freelancers still seem a little larger than life.

Sarita follows her gaze to the two of them, makes a knowing “ _Hm_ ,” sound.

“You think so?” Katie murmurs.

“Oh yeah,” Sarita says. “God. Look at them.”

Katie giggles. 

“Hey, LT.” Katie lifts her head from Sarita’s shoulder and waves to Janina, one of the girls from her squad, who’s approaching the bonfire with her acoustic guitar in hand. “Corporal.”

“At ease, Specialist.” Katie grins. “You gonna play us something?”

Janina takes a seat on a nearby rock, her fluffy pink hair bright in the firelight, and settles her guitar over her knee, tips her chin up and grins back. “Only if you guys sing.”

She starts off light with a few pre-war pop songs, and no small number of the Republic’s soldiers circle the fire to join in. Katie’s never considered herself much of a singer but that doesn’t matter here—when there’s a singalong, you sing. Everyone sings. She notices the Captains turning to look in their direction, the Freelancers too. Curious. Like this is something they aren’t used to. She wonders what they _are_ used to, how they mourn and celebrate and keep up morale and bond as a team, if they don’t sing.

 

It sounds weird, but one of the hardest things was going in without her girls.

She hadn’t been inside the city in years. Most of them hadn’t. The Capital was one of the first losses to the Feds in the early days of the war and they’d kept a firm grip on it ever since, at least that’s what the New Republic always believed. Most of their battles happened in the outlying towns and rural areas. What was left of them. “Taking back Armonia” was a joke around camp—somebody made a stupid suggestion, you’d say, _Sure thing, Private, right after we take back Armonia,_ and everyone would have a big laugh.

Katie remembers, actually, how the wall went up around the city. First there were checkpoints on the roads in and out. Roadblocks set up to funnel you in. Then semi-permanent barriers, fences, and eventually walls. Armonia’s a big city. It took a few years. But by the time the war began in earnest, it had become a walled city, sprawling and asymmetrical but defensible. A fortress.

And here they were, rolling out with every vehicle, every soldier, every weapon in their arsenal, to take back Armonia or die trying.

Jensen and her fellow Lieutenants were on scouting duty, with the task of securing entry points. Five points around the city, then circle back and rendezvous with General Kimball.

She missed her Red Team at her back. Most of all, she missed having Sarita at her side. Corporal Velasquez would be leading their squad. Jensen never doubted her abilities, not for a minute, and yet the thought of sending the girls in without her still tied her stomach in knots. They were a tight squad, a family. Had been since the day she joined.

But orders were orders, and General Kimball believed in this plan, and Jensen believed in her. Always had. Kimball only became General last year, but she was in the resistance long before Jensen was—before most of their current ranks were. Before it was a war for real. 

Something you learned about General Kimball, pretty quick, was that she didn’t lie. So when she said, “Some of us will not survive,” Jensen believed that. When she said, “We’ve come too far to give up now,” Jensen believed that too.

 

A few numbers in, Janina strums a familiar set of chords, an opening everyone in the New Republic knows by heart. She falters, then, and her gaze rises. Katie glances over her shoulder, and sees the General behind her, standing quietly in the firelight, hands in her pockets. Katie sees their eyes meet, and understands—with the ceasefire, in this time of relative peace, what are they? Are they still New Republic? And should they sing—

Kimball nods, and Janina begins again, strumming with more confidence the opening bars of the New Chorale, the anthem of the New Republic of Chorus. And when they sing, the General sings too.

 

She will always remember: the streets of Armonia, so quiet. The sounds of roadblocks slamming, as the checkpoints locked down. She will remember thinking: this is where I die. This is where we all die. Wondering if she could get through to Sarita, to tell her—what? _I love you? I’m sorry? It was all worth it?_

She will remember for the rest of her life, she thinks, however long that may be, the moment when all their radios filled with static, and all the billboards and monitors across Armonia crackled and filled with snow, and then—

The rattle of gunfire echoing between high walls and concrete barriers tapering off rapidly to nothing, all eyes rising to the video footage filling every digital billboard across Armonia and feeding to every helmet. Every device receiving it at once: Felix, knife in hand. The same words.

_“How did you convince Kimball to go to the Capital?”_

The sound of their dead Captain Tucker’s voice.

“It’s a recording,” Bitters hissed, the slightest tremor of hope underlying the skepticism in his voice. “It’s a trick. Don’t—”

“It _is_ a recording,” Smith confirms, nearly stopping Jensen’s heart in her chest, before he adds:

“It’s timestamped nine minutes ago.”

The rest is a blur in memory: running for their vehicle, Smith on TEAMCOM ordering them to the rendezvous point, hanging on for dear life as Bitters gunned the hog around tight corners, praying Sarita and Red Team had made it through the firefight, praying they'd all make it out, gods please let them make it. Ceasefire. Rifle still hot in her hands. Descending the ramp to Waste Management, falling back to the West Gate to await further orders. Feds in their angular white armor falling back to the north. Kimball’s frantic call on the open COM, broadcasting on every channel.

“Tucker! Grif! Can anyone read me? What are your coordinates? ...Where are you?”

 

The party stretches long into the night, and Katie goes to fish a cola out of the cooler of mostly-melted ice when she starts to feel sleepy, fending off a sugar crash from all the marshmallows and pushing back the general exhaustion that hasn’t fully abated in over a year. Sarita pulls her worn pink _U of A_ hoodie on in the nighttime chill. Katie’s hoodie is even more old and ratty, a souvenir sweatshirt from the long-destroyed Armonia Museum of Natural History, gray with faded red lettering. One of few prized possession she has left, threadbare elbows and all.

She and Sarita curl up near the fire, and despite the fresh rush of sugar and caffeine, Katie half-dozes on Sarita’s shoulder. Janina’s taken up her guitar again, picking out a gentle melody.

Through half-open eyes, and through the flames burning lower now, she can just make out Kimball sitting on a rock on the far side of the fire, Agent Carolina sitting close beside her, and Katie smiles.

 

When she opens her eyes again, a faint orange light is breaking over the chasm. Dawn. Beside her on their blanket, Sarita stirs, grumbling wordlessly. The fire’s burned to coals before them, still warm. She can hear voices around the canyon—not everyone’s bothered to sleep, she’s sure, but she’s never been good at all-nighters, even as a soldier.

And a soldier she still is, even in this moment of peace.

Katie fumbles for her glasses, which she's mercifully managed not to roll over on and break. She rolls onto her back on the hard ground and stretches, hand knocking the empty cola can that rolls noisily away. From this vantage the sky appears in a long jagged strip between the chasm walls. It’s still pretty dark, but she can see the light creeping up into the sky from the east, and all but the brightest stars have faded. It’ll be morning soon. They’ll clean up from the celebration, squads will report to their leaders, and Kimball will have new marching orders for them. Maybe going to the Capital. Maybe something else. Something is over, something just beginning, and Katie isn’t really quite sure which is which, to be honest. Guess they’ll figure it out.

But there’s one thing she can feel sure of.

She rolls back toward Sarita, curling up against her side, and Sarita’s brown eyes open. “LT,” she says softly, breaking into a sleepy smile. Katie meets her in a kiss that still tastes, faintly, of sugar and smoke.

“I’m here,” she says, holding Sarita tight. “I’m right here.”

END

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Kimball's appearance is based on [the art of misses-unicorn](http://misses-unicorn.tumblr.com/post/95942138964/i-just-want-kimball-to-kick-felix-into-that). This party scene is the same one described in [Relative Peace](http://archiveofourown.org/works/2424836), and both are inspired by the [art of malcolm-hargrove](http://malcolm-hargrove.tumblr.com/post/98857862385/colorful-soldiers-stop-corruption-you-know-i).

**Author's Note:**

> It's been a couple years since I began this series, and I'm happy to have been able to write a conclusion for it at long last. Thanks to everyone who has read and commented, and thanks to all the other fans who have since embraced Volleyball as a character, and Jolleyball as a ship. Katie and Volleyball have found a special place in my heart over the course of writing this series and I'm happy they've brought joy and inspiration to others as well.
> 
> Thanks again for reading! As always I value your feedback and would love to hear what you thought.
> 
> You can find me on tumblr [here](http://anneapocalypse.tumblr.com), where I rattle on about RvB and writing stuff a whole lot. I also have a sideblog for just fic updates without all the clutter, found [here](http://annefiction.tumblr.com).


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